Guy Laliberté - the famous founder of Cirque du Soleil is planning to make a bid to buy back his creation. In 2015 Guy Laliberte sold Cirque for $1.5 billion US dollars. Radio-Canada talk show "Tout le monde en parle" on Sunday announced that co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte is planning to bid in his effort to buy Cirque du Soleil back. Guy Laliberté wrote following: “A few days before the registration deadline for the battle royal, I am deciding whether or not I’m going to jump into that wrestling ring. ” Last Sunday Guy is in the ring already. Back in 2015, Cirque du Soleil was sold by Guy to American Investment company TPG Capital (60%), to Chinese Fosun group (20%) and to the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (10%). for about 1.5$ billion US dollars. In February 2020, Guy sold his last 10% to the Casse de depot. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Cirque du Soleil shows has been shuttered and most of employees ( about 95%) has been laid off. Top management were evalutaing various options as well as bankruptcy protection, right after main shareholders - Fosun, TPG and Caisse decided to keep the company afloat by providing USD$50million. Guy Laliberté said that Cirque du Soleil and everything Cirque does is his love and his decision was made not only because of money. He said : “It doesn’t have to be US$1.5 billion of value to be viable. There will be a very difficult short term and focus on quality is what my focus is versus money. I will jump in if the price is right, but I don’t want to be in an organization where money drives the future of Cirque. That would be very dangerous for the future of Cirque" He added that there is bright future for Cirque du Soleil. Laliberte noted that it will be hard to restart the Cirque but he has few financial partners ready to work with him as well as he is not mounting bid together with TPG (Cirque main shareholder). Guy Laliberte might step back as CEO of the company or might retain current management with Daniel Lamarre as CEO. Laliberte won't disclose his secret sauce, he said that "I can tell you the love factor, the passion factor, the fire factor is what’s always driven Cirque and I wanted to bring it back to where it once was. There’s no right or wrong with what’s been done with Cirque. Under my management we had highs and lows, but the Cirque is a living organism...
Cirque feeds from its inner fire and you cannot buy that. Money can’t buy the fire" “Don’t get me wrong, it’ll be hell for the first two years and that’s why I took time to reflect on this,” Laliberté said. “Nothing is guaranteed, but I think we’re the best team to make it happen. For sure it’s a jungle out there. It’s complex. But if I’m jumping in, it’s a commitment of 10 to 15 years.” We all hope for the best and hopefully Guy Laliberte will bring Cirque back to success.
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